Calling out the welcome wagon

Seated: Harold Brown; standing, left to right: Gary Virginia, Hank Wilson, Beryl Magilavy, Joan Roughgarden, Gilbert Criswell, Chris Daly, Bruce Windrem.

july 24, 2000. A couple of weeks ago, the politically savvy folks in District 6 were jolted by news that Leslie Katz was withdrawing from the race to become their supervisor. A new fair-haired horse immediately took her place, with Our Mayor’s blessing — in the Chronicle’s words, "Chris Dittenhafer, a 34-year-old South of Market resident who serves on the city Taxi Commission and is president of the Council of District Merchants and the Polk Street Merchants Association."

The announcement raised eyebrows. In the March 2000 primary, Dittenhafer nosed ahead of the last-place candidate for the San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee of Assembly District 12, coming in 24^th out of 25. The South of Market area — in fact all of San Francisco’s Supervisor District 6 — is in Assembly District 13.

As visions of moving vans danced in their heads, the other candidates for supervisor in District 6 issued a statement calling for support from their colleagues in the other districts:

Long-term resident candidates for supervisor from District 6 invite all concerned San Franciscans to take a stand against carpetbagging in district elections. As soon as Supervisor Leslie Katz was unable to steal into incumbentless District 6, allegedly due to the housing crisis her policies first created and then ignored, but most probably due to her lack of support in the district for her politics, the Brown machine to which she adheres brought in an outsider from District 8 (a nice place, but hardly facing the same issues as District 6) to benefit from their campaign expenditures and soft money and carry their political water.

This disdain for district self-determination by big money and its political machine is contrary to the spirit of district elections approved by the voters, which is to ensure that people who live in, work in, and therefore know their districts represent their neighbors on the Board of Supervisors.

Katz' replacement will have to do much explaining to local small businesses and restaurants under attack by Brown's policies and his participation in those small-business and non-tourist restaurant hostile measures. He will also need to discuss his promotion of endless welfare programs for big out-of-town corporations like SKS, which are invading the Mission for office space with the encouragement of the planning process and are forcing small, locally owned business under.